DESCRIPTION

A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system--the debut of a blazingly original voice and a soul-searching portrait of survival and hope.

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison

But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent--which has more than doubled--and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.

Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LEILA MOTTLEY is the author of the novel Nightcrawling, an Oprah's Book Club Pick and New York Times best seller. She is also the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. She was born and raised in Oakland, where she continues to live.

REVIEWS

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE

"Nightcrawling bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole." --Tommy Orange, author of There There

"Nightcrawling is a scorching, incredibly readable book that takes seriously the task of readerly provocation on every page. Get ready. Or don't. It doesn't matter. Leila Mottley is here." --Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

"Leila Mottley's commanding debut, inspired by the life events of one woman's struggle for body and soul against crushing exploitation, is fierce and devastating, rendered with electrifying urgency by this colossal young talent." --Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

"With its powerful poetry and courageous, unsparing vision, Nightcrawling is more than just a magnificent debut novel. It is a bid, by this prodigiously gifted young writer, to heal a broken world." --Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness

"Leila Mottley has an extraordinary gift. She writes with the humility and sparkle of a child, but with the skill and deft touch of a wizened, seasoned storyteller." --James McBride, author of Deacon King Kong

"The writing in Leila Mottley's Nightcrawling erupts and flows like lava, makes hot bright an Oakland that runs the city's uncontrollable brilliance, its destructive and generative veins the same, Mottley's energetic writing here too, bursts at the seams of every page, pushing you deeper into a story you can't help but continue swallowing, stay thirsty for, while it swallows you whole." --Tommy Orange, author of There There

"Leila Mottley has a poet's delicate touch when she tells us the most brutal, heart-crushing truths. This is an electrifying debut." --Dave Eggers, author of The Every